The Lumberjack

Issue date: 12/5/07 Section: The Future of Humboldt State

Media Credit: Garrett Purchio

Humboldt State University formed a task force to determine the amount of money that programs receive from the University and those that will be cut.

Sarah Shoenberger is a Humboldt State student who works with Students Fighting for Fair, Affordable, Accessible and Reliable Education. She sees a culture of fear that is growing among faculty and students here. Faculty are concerned that their department will be eliminated and their jobs will be lost. She said that students are nervous too. They are worried that their program will be cut.

She said that program prioritization could be good or bad for the university. She said that it will be good if the process is transparent. That isn't happening though.

"There's no access to the information," Shoenberger said. "If you are not in the committee then you don't know what's going on."

When members of the council vote, it will be confidential. She said that there is a lot of pressure on the council to keep everything from the public. This goes against state law.

The California Brown Act states that no government body, subsidiary or non-profit can have confidential meetings unless personnel issues, public security, pending litigation, labor or real estate negotiations are discussed. If any of the above are discussed they must be done so in a separate closed session. The final action that is decided on in the closed session must be reported.

Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs Bob Snyder formed the prioritization task force at Humboldt State. Members of the task force were recommended by their colleges and appointed by Snyder. He modeled it after a similar process at Indiana State University. He said that he likes the consultative and faculty-driven process that they used for their academic program prioritization there.

"It was very collaborative and thoughtful," he said.

The task force for Humboldt State hasn't met yet, but the members have been selected. It consists of six faculty members with two from each college. There is also a faculty representative from graduate studies, Snyder himself, a member from his office, and one Humboldt State student.

Carrie Schaden is the student representative on the task force. She sees some drawbacks to the process. "The student voices are not included," she said.

She said that at Indiana State they reorganized the entire school. Now it is more like a vocational school than a university.

She has one question for students who attend Humboldt State. "Is this what we want?" she said.

Snyder thinks so. He said that the goal for Humboldt State is to increase the growth of certain programs. He said that it's all part of the strategic master plan.

The task force will decide which programs will grow. Some will have their funding held. "Others will eventually phase out," he said.

Schanden thinks Humboldt State should be cautious when it comes to reducing and cutting programs. If the process gets out of hand, she said that Humboldt State will have a hard time attracting good professors and competitive students. But she thinks that program prioritization can be good.

"We need to know what we should invest in," she said.

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